


Homecoming & Other Stories

by gabolange



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 17:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16814773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: Collection of drabbles and stories originally posted on Tumblr.





	1. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for it-is-bugs Tumblr prompt "Homecoming." Originally posted November 2018.

**

Lucien settles beside Matthew in his friend’s battered sedan. The taste of Jean’s kiss lingers on his lips, and it would be easy to say, “We just got home!” and run back to her again.

Matthew frowns and starts the engine. “Best part of the honeymoon?” he asks, still without a smile. Lucien knows he’s being goaded, but he can’t help but grin.

The best part? He thinks of the bed in Milan that squeaked the moment they sat on it, the blankets they piled in front of the fire instead. He remembers Jean’s face as she took in the Sistine Chapel, the way she blinked away tears he knew were about more than artistic beauty. He can almost feel her hand in his, wandering London’s old roads late into the evening.

He thinks about this morning, watching Jean at the vanity of their suite. “Ready to go home?” Lucien asked her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, squeezing through the heavy fabric of her suit. There in the mirror he could see _Mrs. Blake_. His wife.

“Yes,” Jean said, and squeezed his hand.

Now, Lucien looks at Matthew and tries to clear his expression. “The churches,” he says.

***


	2. Things You Said I Wasn't Meant to Hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Jean / Lucien, things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear." Set late s2.

The day is warm and still. Jean has thrown the windows open to air the house, and outside she can hear Lucien chopping wood. It’s high summer, they hardly need it, but he announced his intentions with an air of finality Jean knew better to question. Let him work off steam in whatever way he needs--the work will be better for him than the drink.

She doesn’t know what upset him. It might be the current case, but it could equally be the memories that haunt his bedroom at night and linger at the corner of his vision when he wakes. They have lived together long enough now that she knows how the rhythm of his footsteps changes when he has had a bad night. 

She understands, better than either of them like to admit. 

Outside, a car’s tires disrupt the gravel and a motor dies. Jean hears a door open and then close, more quietly than she expects. It isn’t Matthew Lawson, then, or Patrick Tyneman come for a fight. Jean leans toward the window and spots Agnes Clasby. Surely Lucien didn’t have appointments today?

But no. “I was in the area,” Agnes says, casting her gaze over Lucien’s sweaty form. She does not offer a hand to shake, but instead proffers an envelope. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to bring you this.” Lucien wipes his fingers on his trousers before taking the paper between his hands. Agnes continues, “It’s an old clipping about your mother’s art. I thought you would want it.”

Lucien’s back is turned to the house, so Jean cannot see his face, but in the space of his pause she imagines that it gentles. “Yes, I thought so,” Agnes says to Lucien’s silence. Jean watches the older woman look over the mess of a man standing in the yard. “Are you doing all right?” she asks. “Is Jean looking after you?”

His words drift quietly through the window. “Better than I deserve,” Lucien says. 

Agnes’s voice turns brittle. “You like her,” she says in the kind of leading tone Jean used when asking her boys to admit to petty faults. _You took that cookie from the tin. You climbed the tree against my wishes. I know more than you think I do, and I am not wrong._

 _You like her_ , Agnes said, and Jean waits for Lucien’s breezy denial. 

“Too much,” he says, turning his head to glance back at the house. 

Jean steps back from the window and presses her hand to her mouth. She doesn’t hear what Agnes says to that--probably nothing, just a curt nod or a pat on the arm--before she takes her leave. Jean barely hears the door when it slams, heralding Lucien’s messy arrival. Instead she lets Lucien’s soft words play over in her head and wonders what they mean.

**


End file.
